Playboy On Her Christmas List

‘Off the record?’ Daniel said, and Holly nodded.

‘Kay’s words to me just before she headed off to the catheter lab, and I quote, “How the feck am I going to sort out the roster now?”’

‘Really?’ Holly laughed.

‘Really.’ Daniel nodded. ‘And I bet Nora, if Paul is now stable, is worrying about the million and one things that you women seem to worry about at this time of year.’

‘That’s very sexist.’

‘Just an observation.’

‘A wrong one.’

‘I can only go by what I’ve seen. My father never did a thing for Christmas, I aim to be far away from it...’ He thought for a moment. ‘My uncle leaves it all to my aunt...’

Desmond came along then and he took the money and wrote out a receipt, which Holly put in her purse for Kay. ‘What can I get you?’ he offered. ‘On the house, before you go in to that mad lot.’

Oh.

‘I’ll just have a soda water, thanks.’ Daniel said.

‘Well, he’s a cheap date.’ Desmond smiled at Holly. ‘What can I get you?’

‘I’d love a Scotch, please.’

She really, really would.

Holly wasn’t a big drinker at the best of times but a lovely Scotch felt about right and Daniel motioned to a table near an open fire and the tree and they took a seat there.

‘Maybe I am in the mood for Christmas after all.’ Holly smiled, sitting back in the chair and relaxing to the lovely crackle of the fire and inhaling the scent of her drink.

‘I want one,’ Daniel admitted.

‘Tough.’ Holly smiled and then took a sip, enjoying the burn of the liquor. ‘I don’t really like spirits but my dad loves Scotch so I always keep a bottle at home and every now and then I have one.’

‘Well, that’s good to know.’

‘What?’

He smiled and she realised he was perhaps inviting himself to her home for a drink.

Or had she been inviting him?

Hmm.

Holly still didn’t know where this might lead, but it was just so nice to be out in the real world with him and without buzzers and patients and others around. And it was definitely nice to squeeze in five minutes’ pause after work before they headed into the party.

‘Do you get on with your parents?’ he asked.

‘Very much so.’

‘They live...?’ Daniel frowned. He wasn’t sure, though he knew that it was some distance that she often travelled to get home.

‘Up north,’ Holly said, and then told him the village where her family lived.

‘So how come you’re in London?’

‘Because I get on so well with my family.’ Holly smiled. ‘I trained up there and it was all too easy to just live at home... I knew I needed a change.’

‘Yet you’re still home a lot?’

‘My mum hasn’t been very well.’ Holly said, and decided the night had already been grim enough without going further into it. ‘What about you? Are your family in London?’

She didn’t know him at all, Daniel realised.

Holly could have no idea just how refreshing that was. Even before he had started medicine there had been a constant stream of ‘Marcus Chandler’s son’. His father had been head boy at the boarding school Daniel had attended and his record was just as impressive at med school and beyond. Even Kay had made a few comments and had asked if he was any relation to the esteemed Professor Chandler.

Holly had no idea as to that side of his life.

‘Yes.’ Daniel answered the question as to whether his family was in London very simply.

‘Do you get on?’

‘Nope,’ Daniel said.

‘Why?’

‘Because my father is an arrogant git,’ he said, and then looked at her Scotch. ‘Given that I’m on soda water tonight, I shan’t be sharing.’

Holly laughed. ‘What about your mother?’

‘She’s dead.’

Well, that wiped the smile from her face.

‘He married again. I’ve got a sister...’

Daniel refused to call Maddie a half-sister.

‘Do you get on with her?’

‘I do when I see her. And that reminds me, I must get her a Christmas present before I head off.’

Holly’s phone buzzed, indicating an incoming text, and she glanced down and saw that it was Anna, asking where they had disappeared to.

‘Has our absence been noted?’ Daniel asked.

‘It has.’